European-Funded NGOs Promote "Right" to Be Paid for Terror

NGO Monitor

August 02, 2017

European-funded Palestinian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are playing an active role in the campaign supporting the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) policy of paying convicted terrorists and their families, in direct opposition to their donors’ policies and human rights, reported Jerusalem-based research institute NGO Monitor.

NGO Monitor President Prof. Gerald Steinberg stated, “In sharp contrast to the organizations’ stated human rights missions, a number of Palestinian NGOs receiving European government funding assert that terrorists have a ‘right’ to receive salaries and that suspending these payments is a violation of international law. NGO officials have also not questioned the legitimacy of Palestinian violence, and some of their statements can be interpreted as veiled threats meant to prevent an end to payments.”

On July 28, PCHR‘s Director Raji Sourani, who himself has been convicted for membership in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization, called a decision to stop payments to prisoners “shocking,” and said “it is illegal, immoral, and violates the Basic Law and the international human rights law.”

As donors to the PA, the EU and Norway have both denied intentionally funding the PA’s prisoner salaries and have condemned it. The UK, Germany, and the Netherlands have similarly taken steps to examine or halt payments to convicted terrorists, while the US’s proposed Taylor Force Act would deny foreign aid to the PA until prisoner salaries are halted.

Prof. Steinberg added, “Government opposition to the PA’s policy of paying salaries to convicted terrorists ought to be self-evident, and the same should be true for the human rights NGOs they fund. These organizations must recognize the fundamental contradiction between human rights and incentivizing terrorism through the policy of providing convicted terrorists with substantial salaries.”

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A number of European governments have joined the US and others in demanding that the Palestinian Authority (PA) end its policy of paying salaries to, and hence incentivizing, Palestinian prisoners convicted of terror crimes. Yet, in sharp contrast, a number of Palestinian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) receiving European government funding under the banner of human rights assert that terrorists have a “right” to receive salaries and that suspending these payments is a violation of international law.